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Online Dating 101: Is Your Facebook Page Ready For Love?

So, you hit it off with someone you met on an online dating site (yipee!), and you two have reached the stage of exchanging full first and last names. Is your Facebook page ready for this?

Chances are, when someone gets your full name, they're going to look you up on Facebook to see if you have any friends in common, to see what kind of stuff you like and to get a glimpse of you in the real world.

Whether or not you jump into a full-fledged Facebook friendship, remember that like it or not, your Facebook page acts as sort of a secondary dating profile.

1. Choose a Great Picture Use the same care in choosing your Facebook profile picture as you do in choosing your online dating profile picture. Now that Facebook shows multiple pictures on top of the profile page, there's no reason not to pick a relatively sane main pic, and keep the beer pong ones a little more under the radar.

2. Monitor Your Wall Someone who's interested in you might take a quick gander at your Facebook wall, so take a look: is there any sort of offensive joke on there from a buddy or friend? Delete it. Suggestive message from someone that might be misconstrued? Get rid of it. Really gross picture of you? Untag!

3.Update Your Status According to AskMen.com, status updates can be key:

"We don’t have to tell you that people who constantly update their pages and profiles are annoying. However, a strategically timed or placed status message or vacation album may help your cause. You are allowed to boast a bit, so let it spill that you’re going on a Caribbean cruise or flying to Paris for business."

Trying to impress someone in particular? Casually post an article or blog post that's relevant to their interests. Sure, it sounds a bit obvious, but it can definitely get the conversation going as long as you don't overdo it.

4. Stay Positive Seeing someone complain and let-off steam on their Facebook page is a huge turn-off. Ranting about your boss, your coworkers, your family, or worst of all, a cryptic accusatory message ("Sad. I thought friends were supposed to be there for you. Guess I know who I can trust now.") shows a lack of maturity and judgement. If you don't have anything nice to say, definitely don't say it on Facebook.

5. No Flirting! It's SO disheartening to check out the Facebook page of someone you like and see a steady stream of flirty wall posts from someone else. Keep any and all flirting to private features like messaging so as not to get your future dates too discouraged—and obviously put an end to the real flirting once you're serious with someone!